To write down from the mouth of the young fellow any verses
uppermost in his mind. Jones took the pocket-book and pencil and
went to the window, followed by the young man scarcely able to
support himself. Here a curious scene took place, the drinker
hiccuping up verses, and Jones dotting them down, in the best
manner he could, though he had evidently great difficulty to
distinguish what was said to him. At last, methought, the young
man said - "There they are, the verses of the Nightingale, on his
death-bed."
I took the book and read aloud the following lines beautifully
descriptive of the eagerness of a Christian soul to leave its
perishing tabernacle, and get to Paradise and its Creator:-
"Myn'd i'r wyl ar redeg,
I'r byd a beryi chwaneg,
I Beradwys, y ber wiw deg,
Yn Enw Duw yn union deg."
"Do you understand those verses?" said the man on the settle, a
dark swarthy fellow with an oblique kind of vision, and dressed in
a pepper-and-salt coat.
"I will translate them," said I; and forthwith put them into
English - first into prose and then into rhyme, the rhymed version
running thus:-
"Now to my rest I hurry away,
To the world which lasts for ever and aye,
To Paradise, the beautiful place,
Trusting alone in the Lord of Grace" -
"Well," said he of the pepper-and-salt, "if that isn't capital I
don't know what is."
A scene in a public-house, yes! but in a Welsh public-house. Only
think of a Suffolk toper repeating the death-bed verses of a poet;
surely there is a considerable difference between the Celt and the
Saxon.
CHAPTER XXII
Llangollen Fair - Buyers and Sellers - The Jockey - The Greek Cap.
ON the twenty-first was held Llangollen Fair. The day was dull
with occasional showers. I went to see the fair about noon. It
was held in and near a little square in the south-east quarter of
the town, of which square the police-station is the principal
feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing the sign of
the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling fair,
attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English
border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance
than the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-
station half across the space, these carts were filled with pigs,
and had stout cord-nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals
escaping. By the sides of these carts the principal business of
the fair appeared to be going on - there stood the owners male and
female, higgling with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy.
The pigs were all small, and the price given seemed to vary from
eighteen to twenty-five shillings. Those who bought pigs generally
carried them away in their arms; and then there was no little
diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser
invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the
left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast
gripping the ear - some few were led away by strings. There were
some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these
seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far
exceeding the Welsh in height and size.
Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to be going
on. Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held out his hand
for a little Pictish grazier to give it a slap - a cattle bargain
being concluded by a slap of the hand - but the Welshman generally
turned away, with a half resentful exclamation. There were a few
horses and ponies in the street leading into the fair from the
south.
I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was striding
amongst them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at them
and occasionally asking a slight question of one or another of
their proprietors, but he did not buy. He might in age be about
eight-and-twenty, and about six feet and three-quarters of an inch
in height; in build he was perfection itself, a better built man I
never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey coat, trowsers,
leggings and high-lows, and sported a single spur. He had whiskers
- all jockeys should have whiskers - but he had what I did not
like, and what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which
looks coxcombical and Frenchified - but most things have terribly
changed since I was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows,
policemen, were gliding about in their blue coats and leather hats,
holding their thin walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst
whom was the leader, a tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and
hard features. Now if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round
about, and here and there some slight sawing of English - that in
the street leading from the north there were some stalls of
gingerbread and a table at which a queer-looking being with a red
Greek-looking cap on his head, sold rhubarb, herbs, and phials
containing the Lord knows what, and who spoke a low vulgar English
dialect - I repeat, if I add this, I think I have said all that is
necessary about Llangollen Fair.
CHAPTER XXIII
An Expedition - Pont y Pandy - The Sabbath - Glendower's Mount -
Burial Place of Old - Corwen - The Deep Glen - The Grandmother -
The Roadside Chapel.
I WAS now about to leave Llangollen, for a short time, and to set
out on an expedition to Bangor, Snowdon, and one or two places in
Anglesea.
